A Woman's Will by Anne Warner (best 7 inch ereader txt) 📕

moment required the swallowing of all resentment, and she did so. She was not able to raise her eyes to his a second time, but fixed them instead upon her card, and began in a low tone:

“Monsieur, I intended going--”

“I can’t hear what you say,” he interrupted.

“You’ll have to sit down then; I can’t speak any louder; I’m afraid that I shall cry,” in spite of herself her voice trembled at the last words.

“Why should you cry?” he asked, and he sat down at the table beside her, and, leaning his chin upon his hand, turned his eyes upon her with a look that blended undisguised anger with a strange and passionate hunger.

She was biting her lip,--the under one,--unconscious of the fact that by so doing she rendered the corners of her mouth quite distracting; but he perceived both cause and result, and both the anger and the hunger in his gaze deepened as he looked, apparently in a blacker humor than ever.

“Why should you cry?” he said again, after a minute; “you are in a beautiful spot, listening to most excellent music, and you had with you (before I come) a friend very agreeable. Why should you cry?”

She clasped her hands hard and fast together.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I--I hardly know how to speak in the noise and the crowd! I feel quite crazy! I don’t know what I am saying--” she stopped short.

He leaned a little towards her.

“Let us walk outside a minute,” he said. “Monsieur will surely know that we are not far. In the air it is better,--yes?”

“But what will he think?”

“_Mon Dieu_, let him think what he will! I also have had thinking this night. Let him think a little.”

He rose as he spoke, and she rose too. Already the anger in his eyes was fading fast before the sight of her so genuine emotion. They went out into the garden, and there she took up her explanation again.

“You thought I stayed here because of that man, didn’t you?”

“_Donnerwetter!_” he cried violently; “here he returns already again!”

It was indeed the American, approaching as fast as the crowd would let him. His face bore a curious expression. One might have gathered from it that he was much more clever, or much more stupid, than the vast majority gave him credit for being. The instant that he was near enough to speak, he began in out-of-breath accents:

“I’ve just met some people that I haven’t seen in years, and they want me to drive with them up by the University and see the town by moonlight, and I wondered if I could find you here in three-quarters of an hour--”

Rosina looked at him helplessly, divining that he supposed a degree of friendship between herself and Von Ibn which would cause his proposition to be most warmly welcome.

But Von Ibn spoke at once, coldly, but politely.

“Perhaps madame will permit me to escort her to her hotel this evening. If she will do so, I shall be most happy.”

The American looked eagerly at Rosina.

“I am going very soon,” she said; “perhaps that will be best.”

He appeared puzzled.

“If you’d rather I stayed--” he suggested.

“No,” said Von Ibn sharply, “it is better that you go!” then he added, in a somewhat milder tone, “it is very fine, the moonlight from the University.”

When they were alone, he was silent and led her out of the crowded garden down upon the Quai. It was a superb night, and the moon and its golden beams were mirrored in the lake. Little waves came running tranquilly across the shivering silver sheet and tossing themselves gently up against the stone-sheathed bank; some merry boat-loads were drifting out among the shadows, listening to the music from the shore and sending a silver echo of laughter to join in its accords.

They walked on until something of their own tumult was stayed by the stillness, and then Von Ibn said quietly:

“Tell me of what you were saying.”

“I was saying that you thought that I had remained here because of that man, and yet it was really all an accident.”

He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

“But you are quite free,--and he seems very nice, and is of your own country and all so agreeable.”

“I was really too tired to go to Constance, but--”

“Oh, madame, _je vous en prie_,” he interrupted, “no explanation is needful. It does not interest me, I assure you.”

“I did not want to go to Constance until Thursday,” she went steadily on; “but I could not stay here because--because--”

“Yes,” he interrupted, “all that I have understand,--I understand all.”

“So,” she continued, “I packed to go, and meant to go, and then when you told me that you were leaving too, I thought that I might just as well adhere to my--”

“What is ‘adhere’?” he broke in; “that word I have never known before.”

“It means--well--it means ‘stick to.’”

“Glue paste?”

She felt as if a clown had suddenly turned a somersault into the midst of the death scene of Hamlet!

“Not glue paste,” she explained carefully; “of course, in one way, it means the same thing; but I meant that when I knew that you were going, I felt that I might just as well do as I had originally intended doing, and remain here to rest a little.”

“And you repose by coming to the Tonhalle with a gentleman?” he asked in a tone of smothered sarcasm.

“I met him this afternoon as I was walking--”

“Have you only know him first this afternoon?”

“_Monsieur!_” she cried in horror, “I came on the steamer with him from New York, and he went to college with my cousin!”

Von Ibn gave another shrug.

“You tell everything very cleverly,” he remarked; “but, my dear madame, we have too many difficulties,--it is always that between us, and--what is your proverb?--no smoke without over a fire?--_Eh bien_, I begin to grow weary.”

“Don’t you believe what I have just told you?” she demanded.

They were near the further end of the Quai where the crowd was thinnest and the play of moonbeam and shadow most alluring. He stopped and looked long upon the shining water, and then long upon her face.

“Yes,” he said at last, “I do believe.” He held out his hand, “I do believe now, but I must tell you that truly if I had been of a ‘_tempérament jaloux_,’ I would have been very angry this night. Yes,--of a surety.”

She looked away, with an impulse to smile, and her heart was sufficiently eased of its burden to allow her to do so.

“Shall we go to the hotel now?” she asked after a moment.

“But you have not given me your hand?”

She put her hand in his, and he pressed it warmly, and then drew it within his arm as they turned to retrace their steps.

“I like better to walk alone,” she said, freeing herself.

“You are, perhaps, still angry?” he inquired anxiously.

“No, but I can walk easier alone. And I want you to tell me now why you are not _en route_ North, instead of staying here in Zurich.”

“But I have been North,” he said eagerly; “I have been this day to Aârburg.”

“To Aârburg!--Where is that?”

“Wait, I will make all plain to you,” he looked down upon her with the smile that always proclaimed a complete declaration of peace, “it all went like this: I see so plain that I make you to leave before you like, that I am glad to go away and so make you quite free. It came to my head like this,--I wanted to know something and by looking at your face and saying that I must go to Leipsic for some one there, I see all that I wish to know--”

“What did you see?” Rosina interrupted.

“I see plainly that you think it is some lady--”

“I did not think any such a thing!” she cried hotly.

He laughed and tossed his head.

“And so as I really should go to Leipsic I take the train and go, and then on the train I think why am I gone, and when I think again, I feel to leave the train at Aârburg and telegraph, and when the answer come that you are still here, I feel very strongly to return at once, and so I do.”

Rosina looked up with a smile, and, meeting his eyes, was suddenly overcome with a fear, vague and undefined, it is true, but not the less real, as to whether she had been wise in bringing about this most complete reconciliation.

“But you must still go to Leipsic?” she asked presently.

“Yes, after a little.”

“I wish you had gone when you started.”

“Why?”

“I am sure that you, who always understand, know why.”

“After a while will do,” he said easily, “when we are more tired of ourselves.” He paused. “Perhaps Thursday,” he suggested.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, in spite of herself.

“Why ‘oh’?”

“You are so positive that we shall be _ennuyés_ by Thursday.”

“Yes,” he replied tranquilly, “we see so much of us together that it cannot last long so. Indeed it was for that that I was quite willing to go to-day, but on the train I begin to think otherwise, and my otherwise thoughts are become so strong that I find myself obliged to get down at Aârburg.”

“And Leipsic?”

“Ah, for that you were so charming to send for me to-night and tell me how all has been I will tell you all the truth of Leipsic. It is there that my professor lives, the man who has teach me all that I know. He is to me the most dear out of all the world, for he gave to me my music, which is my life and my soul. And so you may understand that I speak truth indeed when I say that I have much interest in Leipsic.”

Rosina nodded, a sympathetic smile upon her lips.

“But we must go back to the hotel now,” she said sadly; “it is nearly ten o’clock.”

“And I may come to-morrow morning and we shall make a promenade together, _n’est-ce pas_?” he said eagerly; “it is so good, you and I together, these days. How can I make you know how I feel if you have not the same feeling,--the feeling that all the clouds and all the grass are singing, that all about us is perfect accord of sound, when we are only free to laugh and to talk as we may please.”

“But I ought to go on to my friends to-morrow,” she said, “you must know that.”

“But I will go there.”

“To Constance?”

“Yes, surely.”

“Oh, monsieur, that will not do at all!”

“Why will it not do at all?”

“I don’t want you following me to Constance as you did to Zurich.”

“But I will not follow you; I will this time go on the same train with you.”

“Oh,” she said, in despair at the wide space between his views and those of the world in general, “you cannot do that, it would not look well at all.”

He stared at her in surprise.

“Who will it look unwell to?”